Deploying Industry 4.0 Enablers to Strengthen Supply Chain Resilience to Mitigate Ripple Effects: An Empirical Study of Top Relay Manufacturer in China

In the global marketplace, supply chains are becoming increasingly linked. The risk posed by the ripple effect of uncertainty will damage the normal operation of the entire supply chain, so it is an important issue to enhance the resilience of enterprises that manufacture electronic to reduce the ripple effects of supply chains. Quality function deployment (QFD) has been applied in many areas to solve multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problems successfully. However, there is still lack of study has addressed the improvement of supply chain resilience through Industry 4.0 to alleviate the ripple effect, and the application of QFD to integrate and analyze the relationship between Industry 4.0 and supply chain resilience, and between supply chain resilience and the ripple effect. Therefore, this study proposes an integrated QFD-MCDM model to identify the key Industry 4.0 enablers (I4Es) to strengthen supply chain resilience indicators (SCRIs) and mitigate the ripple effect risk factors (RERFs), thus providing an effective method for enterprises to develop a resilient supply chain that can quickly respond to changes and uncertainties. The case study considered China’s largest relay manufacturing enterprise as the object and obtained important management insights, as well as practical significance, from implementing the proposed research framework. The study found the following to be the most urgent I4Es required to strengthen SCRIs and reduce the key RERFs: IT information technology structure and level, enterprise strategic management and new technology coordination, supply chain digitization, analysis and management of big Data, IT Infrastructure and use digital technology for new product innovation, intelligent. When these measures are improved, the SCRIs can be improved, such as risk awareness, efficiency, agility, sustainability, coordination and cooperation, supply chain structure and safety assurance. Finally, RERFs, such as the ripple effect caused by economic collapse, epidemic conditions, natural disasters, political factors, supply chain operation capability caused, can be alleviated or eliminated. With limited resources, enterprises can devote their most important resources to the most critical Industry 4.0 improvement strategies. This framework provides an effective method for electronics manufacturers to formulate I4Es and strengthen SCRIs to mitigate the RERFs, and also provides a reference for enterprises in other fields of supply chain management.